


Prologue 1–Things Seen Before

by BubuBORG



Series: Team Medi: Discord Prompts [8]
Category: Multi-Fandom, Star Trek, TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms
Genre: Gen, Strap in kids, Tolkien Discord Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-21
Updated: 2018-10-21
Packaged: 2019-08-05 09:15:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,776
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16365062
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BubuBORG/pseuds/BubuBORG
Summary: Cadet Reid returns home for Thanksgiving break. There, his godfather looks for answers.





	1. Chapter 1

**_Prologue: Things Seen Before_ **

 

Adam Reid the Third enjoyed Starfleet Academy immensely.His freshman year was a series of experiences that expanded his understanding of the universe around him.He felt five times smarter and learned than when he first attended. 

Thank God, he thought to himself, as he walked up the stoop to the front door to his old home, it was winter break all the same.Adam looked himself over: he was a rather mature person for his age, with a prominent jaw line and smiling, though preternaturally dark eyes.His hair was in a perpetual widow’s peak in a medium brown color, and cut in the short cadets’ style. 

 

Before he could knock on the door, he saw a portion of face, a smiling, friendly eye.It was his father.Thomas Reid was balding, his hair sticking out like black thickets on top of his ears, his eyebrows framing the face below. The door opened, revealing all of Tom, wearing a casual turtleneck and denim jeans.“Well, there you are, Cadet!” He greeted his son in the foyer.“Thought you’d gotten mixed up in the pattern buffer or something.Joy!Your brother’s here; come grab his bags.”

A ten-year-old girl tromped down the stairs, grabbed the bags and ran off, as if something else entirely held her attention.Her dark hair could barely be seen whipping around the corner.“What’s with her?” Adam asked, looking up the stairs.“She didn’t even stop to call me a name.”

“She’s being told a story by your Godfather,” Thomas explained, “And he’s very eager to talk to you.Something about the research you’ve been doing for him?”

“What?”Adam’s face blanked temporarily.Then it dawned on him that his godfather wanted to discuss with Adam his findings on the volumes of lore that was lent him over the last few months.“Oh, yes, his little side project from Arda.”

“Arda. That’s all you two talk about.What’s so interesting about Arda?”Tom groused, already knowing the answer.

Arda.Anor II on the books.It was a planet lying close to the crux of borders of Romulan and Klingon space, close to the Azure Nebula.Adam’s godfather was always involved with it, bringing stories of its quasi-medieval peoples and histories.Adam was never without a volume of Ardan lore, whether it be the Quenta Silmarillion, or the ancient myths of the Númenóreans, who used to live on the planet.His godfather, a gentleman who went by the name Gandalf, had made certain of it.Gandalf was the reason Adam attended the academy. 

“Arda’s one of the most _fascinating_ planets to study that I’ve ever found, Dad!” Adam exclaimed, walking up the stairs.“I know you’ve read ‘There and Back Again’!”

“I skimmed through it,” Tom admitted. 

Adam turned into the hall, past the closet, and into his old room, where Joy was sitting on the floor listening to a story.“And Lúthien, who loved Beren very much, chose to become mortal, like he was, so that they could live together, and die soon after.”

“Wow.She loved Beren that much?” Joy breathed.“That’s so mega-cool!”

“Yes, indeed.Now,” the man turned around.His Starfleet uniform gave him the rank of Admiral, and his unruly head of grey hair, pulled back and bound, as well as his long beard, marked him as a man of age and wisdom.

“Gandalf!” Adam exclaimed as he and his godfather embraced.“It’s been a long time since I’ve seen you at the house.Not since I was six years old, I think.Joy wasn’t even born yet.” He smiled.“So nice of you to join us for the holidays.”

Gandalf’s manner was affable, yet strangely urgent.“I couldn’t wait to talk to you, Adam.At school I gave you a great deal to work on, as well as your studies.Forgive me, but It wasn't just for your own amusement that I gave you those files.Tell me what you think.”

“All right, Gandalf, let me sit down.”Adam sat at his old student’s desk and swung around toward him.“Actually, I’ve been thinking about Bilbo’s ring.”

Gandalf’s eyes were laser-sharp in his intensity.“What have you found?”

“You weren’t sure if whether it was one of the rings of power from the old poems.”Adam held out three fingers from his left hand.“Now the elves had three rings, and they stayed in their possession, correct?”

“Correct.”

“The Khâzad had seven rings, many of which were destroyed by the Dragaâl over the course of the centuries, or gone missing, which means that there’s a good possibility that it’s one of those.It was found in a cave in the Misty Mountains.Did the Dwarves ever make claim in that area?”

“Not within the timeframe in which the seven rings were created,” Gandalf replied.

Adam shifted in his chair.“It’s either one of the seven, Gandalf…” Adam hesitated.“What were these things made of?”

“According to research from the 23rd century by Dr. Thaddeus Wright and Commander Kili, the combination of a heavy metal and crystallized mediterranium does the trick.”

“What does all that mean?”

“It means that it’s most likely a psychic resonator.Able to amplify the natural mental and metanatural abilities of its user.Let’s say that you, a partial Betazoid, were to put on a Ring of power.”

Adam’s shoulders stiffened.“A-all right.”

“All things being equal, your Empathic abilities would be amplified.Your awareness would be altered.And your mind and the ring would be connected.

“Sounds almost like a _narcotic_ effect,” Adam noted.“Wearing a Ring is addictive, yes?”

“So I’ve been told.”Gandalf got up and walked toward the door.

“There’s another possibility,” Adam called to him. 

Gandalf stopped, under the doorway and looked at him deeply.“I’m not going to like this possibility, am I?”

Adam shook his head.“I doubt it.”Adam took out a scrap of paper and recited.As he did, it seemed as if the sun outside hid behind the clouds.

 

**_One ring to rule them all_ **

**_One ring to find them_ **

**_One ring to bring them all_ **

**_And in the darkness bind them_ **

 

**_In the land of mordor where the shadows lie._ **

 

As Adam completed reciting the poem, the sun again streamed in through the western window.“That’s quite enough of that,” Gandalf told him, his eyelids aflutter.“What evidence points to the One?”

“The last person who claimed the One was Isildur, and that was over two thousand years ago.It’s possible that after Isildur’s death, the ring found its way into the Misty Mountains naturally; it was consumed by wildlife, deposited later at another location, a bird, something like that, but that sounds too…around-the-way.”

“We believe that the Rings of power retained the mental patterns of the original owner.”

 

“So the One ring retained the mental patterns of Sauron.That’s what makes it dangerous, that Sauron’s put so much mental empathic energy into the device?”

“Sauron is a corrupt force, and the power of his ring has a corrupting effect.”

“And if what I think is right…?”

“Then one of the most devastating, tragic weapons possibly to be forged in this galaxy is in the hands of one of the more simpler, naive folk in the galaxy.”

Adam looked directly at Gandalf.“What are you going to do?”

“What I always do,” Gandalf replied stiffly.“My duty.”

Adam looked off for a moment, and then smiled.“Not before we have some ham and stuffing and pumpkin pie and all sorts of stuff that Mom’s going to make, all right?The galaxy might need saved tomorrow, but today, you’re with us, got it?”

“I have found that I cannot resist the urge to dine with Bagginses nor Reids,” Gandalf answered.

A feminine voice was heard from down the hall. It was also heard inside Adam’s mind.*Adam! Come and visit with your Grandma Varria! *

Adam smiled and sprang up from the chair, *Coming, Nana! *

*And shame on you for not sensing me already! *

Gandalf smiled.“Go and visit.I have to confer with some of my contacts.”

Adam left, leaving Gandalf alone in the room containing the terminal.“Computer,” Gandalf told it, “Connect with remote-subspace-transciever Arda 1-30-niner.”

[Password protected.]

“Olorin,” Gandalf replied

A deep, masculine voice replied, “It’s about time you called me!”

“Forgive me, cousin!” Gandalf told the voice.“Have you news of Isengard?”

“The trees keep falling, and the local ecosystem is changing from day to day.There’s a polluting element creeping in, synth-runoff, some traces of carcinogenic compounds like benzene, but nothing that can’t be reversed.VERY careless of you-know-who, if y’ask me.”

“One of my…researchers thinks that the One might be in the Shire,” Gandalf told the voice.“Radagast, I want you to put everyone you work with on high alert.”

“I’m always on high alert,” Radagast protested.“These people are on the verge of creating flintlock rifles, and that’s going to be hell on the environment if it follows the pattern.”

“All right, then,” Gandalf sighed.“Do not hesitate if you hear anything dire.”

“Done and Done.Radagast Out.”

Gandalf got up and walked out of the room, down the hall and down the stairs to continue his visit.

 

 

At the dinner table, Gandalf sat opposite Thomas as the rest of the family filed in. Joy, apple-cheeked and fiercely intelligent, bounced into a chair opposite from Adam, and stuck her tongue out at him.Their mother, Ariana, sanguine and doting, sat next to Thomas and Joy. Varria sat herself last, chuckling and tousling her grandchildren’s heads.

“Are we missing anybody?” Tom asked.

“Josh M. and Uncle Belmont haven’t arrived yet,” Adam reminded him.The New Orleans Reids, distantly related to the Canton Reids, had been close friends since the mid-twenty-second century, in the days of the previous Adam and Joshua Reid.The New Orleans Reids, headed by Belmont Reid-LeBeau and his wife, Jeanne-Marie, came from a line of folks born with something…extra.They stood as a living testament to a time in Earth’s history when men’s DNA was tampered with to unlock the potential of Human Evolution, and it ended poorly.The survivors found themselves mutated, an extra gene activated within their being.For the Reid-LeBeaus, it was a point of pride to keep what the Eugenics wars had given them.

 

Tom looked at the close by grandfather clock.“Well, it’s almost three.I don’t think we can wait any longer.Dig in everyone!”He exclaimed.

Adam shrugged and mumbled, “His loss,” before starting on his plate.

“DON'T!” a voice called out

Adam turned around and grinned madly.It was his uncle Belmont.His eyes glowed bright orange, which reflected off his bald pate.Behind him was Joshua Maurice, his blond hair cropped close, himself in his cadet uniform. “Don’t stuff that fork in y’mouth…until you’ve tried some a’ dis.”With that, the New Orleans chef presented a covered dish in front of Gandalf and revealed one of his finest blackened turkey dishes.“Et voila!”

“Hullo, Belmont,” Gandalf told him.“I see you’ve been perfecting your craft.”

“To de benefit of all, old friend,” Belmont replied.“Jeanne-Marie, Place these dishes on de table.Yes, right there, excellent, _chere_.”

“Hey, Adam Three,” drawled Joshua

“Hey, Josh M,” Adam replied.

“I see _Grandpere_ Gandalf got here,” Josh noted.“How’d you do for the quarter?”

“Ninetieth percentile,” Adam boasted.“With exceptional marks in interstellar diplomacy and starship navigation.”

“I’m so glad we picked different fields,” Josh sighed.“Bad enough having you as a roomie, I’d have killed you if I had to pick up after you in lab as well.”

“Well, I could have used your help when Gandalf gave me all this stuff about the Rings of Power from Arda,” Adam grouched, eating his turkey.“Especially all this data on battles and such, that’s always been _your_ passion.”

“Well, damn, boy, all you had to do was ask.” Josh looked slightly peeved.“What’s he got you wrapped up in, anyway?”

“Something’s going to happen on Arda, Josh.Something really important.”

“Wasn’t Arda the homeworld of the Númenóreans?” Josh asked.“Didn’t they go to war against the ancient starfaring peoples like the Iconians and the Marekka and the Chal and such?Where did they go?”

“Those old toys are still around, that’s what I’m telling you,” Adam insisted.Something of great power is poised to start a huge power struggle with these medieval-level people that might just wipe out all life on the whole continent.”

“—Pass the okra—”

“Right,” Josh said, nodding, passing the plate over, “You gotta tell me more, that’s something else!”

“Arda’s a multispecies world, like the Xindi,” Adam told him.“We don’t know if they all evolved there or whether they migrated there in antiquity. They seem to share a common theology, however…” Adam trailed off.

“According to the archaeologists,” Josh said, “The Númenóreans had developed technology about equal to what we have right now.Warp Drive, Transporters, replicator technology, phasers and photons.And they were wiped out in some sort of cataclysm.It was an E.L.E.—Extinction Level Event—that they never recovered from.”

“Yeah, Pass the Dumplings?”

Gandalf ate quietly, seated next to Thomas, Belmont and Grandma Varria, while the elderly Betazoid kept pestering him. 

“I mean it, Gandalf!I’m positive that my great-aunt Lwakara crash-landed in the same sector as Arda.I keep having these Precognitive dreams—I’m never wrong—that she’s landed in a river on Arda and that man with yellow Boots has her hostage—”

“Yes, quite,” muttered Gandalf, eating, getting looks of empathy from Tom and Belmont.“Certainly look into that for you, Mrs. Reid, certainly.”

 

“Arda, Arda, Arda,” Tom groused.“I tell you, if you like the planet so much, I say you should go and move and live there!”

“It so happens that I do call that world home, more than any other world,” Gandalf replied.“True, Earth has beauty and people of good heart, but I prefer a world with a little…mischief.”

“Well, den,” Belmont replied, “P’raps Qo’noS suit ya.Or Nimbus III.”His wife smiled beside him. “De Klingons, dey always know how to raise a ruckus.”

“They also know how to conquer, how to subjugate those who are weaker than them.Only the worthy survive a Klingon society.There is no appreciation for the meek or the perceived weak,” Gandalf said.“I could not stay among them for very long.”

 

The meal soon finished, and the conversations moved into the living room.There was a much-hyped Parisses Squares tournament being broadcast from Andor, featuring the Andorian athletic dynamo Aldor Arkei, and the Elder Reids sat down and watched it.Gandalf nodded at the finer points of the game as they watched, and excused himself politely.He went to the foyer and put on a rather tattered and worn cloak and placed his weathered hand upon the knob of the door.

“You’re leaving?Without even saying goodbye?”Adam came down the upward stairwell.He held a mug of cocoa.

 

“I’m genuinely sorry, Adam, but something’s come up.I need to do some more research on this Ring business.I also have to get in contact with another old friend. I believe you’ve met him.You know him as Aaron Strider.”

Adam nodded.“Okay.”

Gandalf’s gaze was sly, every looking to the doorknob.“I’ll be in touch, as ever.Please send my apologies to your family.”

Adam was quiet for a beat, until he blurted, “What are the chances that I can get in on this?”

Gandalf slowly turned around.His face was inscrutable.“In on this?”

“I’m a part of this.This whole Ring business.You made me part of it.You made me your researcher, your protégé in Starfleet.You know I want this.You’ve known it for years.I’m asking you.”

“There’s no direct evidence that Bag End holds the One.Until that instant that I know, I can do nothing but suspect and fret.You need not until that moment.”Gandalf smiled, almost apologetically.“I suspect that you and Aragorn will get on quite well.I must go,” he said, and hurried out the door, grabbing his staff as he went.

 

Adam looked on as he puttered about, less than gracefully, with his staff before hitting his communicator badge, and beaming away from the front yard.He stood there a moment, still holding his cocoa, before closing the bright red front door.

“He gone?” Josh asked him from the top of the stairwell. 

“Yeah,” Adam replied. 

“Deddy sez he’s an odd duck,” Josh said with a chuckle.“Then again, I guess _we’re_ odd ducks too.”

“Sometimes,” Adam conceded. 

“You tell your Ded about what he gave you at the beginning of the quarter?”Josh asked.

“No.”Adam shrugged.“Doesn’t matter.”

“Who’s Aragorn?”Josh asked him.

Adam was silent for a moment.“He’s a man who’s the one true king of Gondor,” he replied, “But who may never take the throne.”

“Well, that’s kind of sad,” Josh replied.“To never know what you could truly be.”

Adam nodded, and joined Josh back up the stairs.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After graduation, Gandalf has gotten closer to formulating a plan to incorporate Adam into his plans.

**[May 30, 2356]**

 

The Graduating class of ‘56 in Starfleet Academy, all in their dress uniforms, cheered at the end of Commencement.Their ceremonial caps were all thrown in unison, as was Academy custom, and afterwards the new officers mingled at the function with parents and other assorted loved ones. 

The Reids huddled close to other Starfleet Officers attending the Commencement.Among them was Gandalf, who introduced Adam to several of his colleagues.

“This is Captain Necheyev, she’s the commanding officer of the new Deep Space outpost Number Two”

Adam nodded respectfully.“Ma’am.”

“Gandalf keeps telling us to expect good things from you,” Necheyev said to him.Her tone was intimidating, though he sensed more amusement than ill will.

“Only time will tell, Captain, if I’ll live up to my mentor’s expectations.I’ll certainly try my best.”

“Of course.I can tell you right away that you’re the type of graduate that I enjoy using at D-S-Two, but it seems that we have other plans for you.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Your first posting, son,” Gandalf gently said.“Or haven’t you found out yet?”

 

At that moment, another female captain walked up to the three of them, with Josh Maurice behind her.Her face was broad, and her hair was curly, yet severely tied back.Her demeanor was confident, but without the imposing regality that Necheyev displayed.

“Lieutenant Reid?”She said to Adam, who turned right away and stood at attention.“Captain Nerene Wilson, of the scout vessel _Hanson_.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Adam replied

“You’re going to be my new Ops officer, eh?” she said, appraisingly.“You’re specialized in the academy in diplomacy, history, and starship command.Gandalf told me that you’d be good to have around, as good as Ensign Reid behind me will be at the Conn station.”

“I’ll do my best,” Adam said, not wanting to come off as too cocky before he even set foot on his first posting.Josh, however, seemed to be cocky enough for both of them.

“The Lieutenant’s too modest, Cap’n,” he said to Wilson from behind. “He can run a starship, easy as you please.”

“There’s only one way to find out for sure.” Wilson said, before she turned to leave.She stepped around Josh before looking over her shoulder and saying, “By the way, you’re to report to me in Spacedock tomorrow at 0800 sharp.Don’t make the time-honored mistake of drinking yourselves late, eh?”

 

“There won’t be any problems there,” Gandalf said.“Lieutenant Reid was going to be joining me tonight at the Quantum Cafe.”

“I am?” Adam asked, mildly confused.

“We were going to talk about the thing,” Gandalf said, as if reminding him.

“The thing?” Adam said, beginning to feel he was the target of a rather unpleasant joke in front of his superiors.

“It RHYMES with ‘thing,’” Gandalf said, an impatient edge in his voice.

 

 

 

Gandalf ate with Adam in the open and spacious officer’s club, located close to Vista Point, overlooking the Bay and the city within.Adam saw flocks of sailboats on the waters as he ate his pasta dish.

“Things have happened rather quickly,” Gandalf told him.“I have concluded that Bilbo’s ring is indeed the One.I have other concerns regarding Sauron’s actions in Arda.I’ve met with the Starfleet C-in-C, and he’s given me certain liberties.”

“What do you mean?” Adam asked.

“It is my intention,” Gandalf said, “To get the ring destroyed.”

Adam was silent.He ate his pasta.Gandalf looked at him intently.

“What are you thinking?” He asked his godson.

“Are you looking for volunteers?” Adam asked.“To get the ring to Mordor?”

“I will attempt to get the Ring to Rivendell,” Gandalf said.“Once there, I will send a message for a Starfleet scout vessel.You will be on it.From there, we will finagle a way to escort the Ring to Mordor.”

Adam nodded.“You know I would, Gandalf.”

Gandalf smiled, but it did not quite reach his eyes.“I know.But I would not ask it of you.This is a purely volunteer mission, because even I don’t know the outcome.Captain Wilson will be in the area, and has volunteered her services.”

“’Volunteered’, sir?” Adam prodded.

“She owes me a rather weighty favor,” Gandalf replied and said no more on the subject.

“So, what?” Adam asked.“Are you saying you’re going away for a while?When will I see you again?”

Gandalf put his napkin down, got up, and leaned over Adam in a way that always made him feel very young and very small.“I will signal the _Hanson_ , as I said.My signal will not be early, nor will it be late.It will arrive exactly when I intend it to.”

“I swear, sir,” Adam said, “Sometimes, you can act like some sort of wizard.”

A strange smile spread across the El-aurian’s face.“I will bring that compliment with me on my journeys, as I take your leave.”

“Gandalf!”

The old man turned around.Adam said, almost felt like pleading, “Doesn’t this sound like a rather linear plan to you?”

Gandalf walked back to the table and grasped his shoulder.“There will not be a blind chance, a single path to salvation.As your cousin is fond of saying, there must be a plan of contingency.Keep in touch Adam!These will be dark times to come, and I may come to depend on your vigilance.”

With that, he left. 

It would be the last time he would see his Godfather for two years.


End file.
